Beneath Countless Stars
by letterstonorah
Summary: Spock and Uhura wander away from Captain Pike's party, and get to know each other.


The first time he stimulates her manually—his index and middle finger inside of her—he is 76.9% certain that he will reach the peak of his sexual response cycle without so much as a single touch to his penis.

The way Nyota pulses over his fingers, slick and wet, is quite gratifying, causing pre-come to drip from his lok . His palm brushes the damp hair that covers her superior and inferior ramus bones, and he wishes to press his face between her legs, rub his cheek into the curls, and breathe in her scent.

He realises that he is deranged. He does not care.

They are at Half Moon Bay, a cliffy beach south of San Francisco that even Spock will admit is aesthetically pleasing. It is 5 degrees celsius, 41 degrees fahrenheit. Humidity, 49%.

Not a half kilometre away, military personel and civilians celebrate Christopher Pike's recently awarded captaincy with food and libations. The bonfire glows orange in the distance. Everyone there is intoxicated.

Lieutenant Uhura and he had abandoned the revelry in order to 'walk off their meal'—Uhura's words.

They sauntered (he believed this was the correct word. English possessed several synonyms for the verb 'to walk', and he could not always understand the distinctions), Uhura talking animatedly as he listened, content to enjoy the cadence of her voice. Outside of academic settings, it took on an accented vernacular he found endearing.

Uhura expressed gratitude that Spock invited her to the event, and even though she did not expect Christopher Pike to remember her two years from now, when it came time for assignments, she was still grateful for the opportunity to meet the man who would be at the helm of the Enterprise.

They'd chatted like this for several sminutes, until Spock insisted they stop, noting the limp in Uhura's walk.

"Sorry," she said, her hand wrapped around his wrist as he helped to support her to a sitting position.

"It is of no consequence," he'd said—or hoped to say; he's not sure if he'd ever actually managed it. It was not easy to focus on conversation when her hand was so close to his hand—and in fact, touching him. He could feel the hazy warmth of her consciousness, electric and agonisingly close. "I was under the impression that you should be fully recovered from the injuries you sustained by now," he said, gently tugging his wrist out of her grasp as they sat onto the cold sand. His thermal under shirt, long-sleeved tee, sweater, and wool pea coat did little to prevent the chill creeping into his bones, but Uhura radiated a most pleasing heat. He was content to bask in it.

"It probably _would_ be healed if I'd actually listened to what I was supposed to do, like I should have," she said. "But you know, as soon as it started feeling a bit better, I began running again. So here we are now."

She'd shattered the bone completely during a routine training mission gone awry. A small shuttle. Pilot error. She'd managed to repatch communications systems and calculate a radio-route to send out a message that should have been impossible, given how many light years they were into deep space—all while her foot lay under a fallen hatch.

It was quite remarkable. Spock had often noted her astute aural sensitivity, but knew that it more than that. A way of sensing and seeing that could not always be explained in physical terms, at least not yet. _How the hell did she send an SOS when there was no __thing__ to send the SOS through? That's like trying to talk to your neighbor through a can and string, but with no string,_ an admiral said. Uhura explained that the entire galaxy was a string, and once one understood that, what she did was _'child's play, to be quite honest, Sir.'_ Again, her words.

Many commisioned officers who attended the Academy's postgraduate programs were worlds renowned, but Lieutenant Nyota Uhura was in a class all her own. Spock admired the sharpness of her mind, the fierce dedication she had to her craft, and her unwavering work ethic.

Uhura's ordeal had proven a worthy test of his emotional control_._

He felt anger at the young pilot who'd made such a grievous mistake, disdain for the command team who'd designed this mission, when Spock could easily identify several flaws in their initial plans, and a strange, thick, desperate,unfathomable pain at the thought she might be lost.

That was several months ago now. Still. It was unpleasant to think on it.

A tap on the shoulder alerted him to his mental drift, and he refocused on the moment: Uhura, the beach, the sand.

"You're pretty quiet tonight. What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"Your ankle," he said, which was, in a fashion, true.

"Please, please, please don't give me any grief about going on it too soon," Uhura said. "I already got a good dose of that from Bones. He's disowned me about three times already."

As she spoke, Spock followed the movement of her lips, then let his gaze move downward to the bottom edge of her jawbone, then to her chin. She wore a garment she'd termed a 'bomber jacket', dark green (with perhaps a hexadecimal value of #003D00, though Spock could not be certain given that it was dark out).

The collar of the jacket rose high on her neck, for which Spock was very grateful. It would not do for him to see that skin now, soft and perfect, fluttering infinitesimally at her pulse.

"I am not planning to give you any grief, Lieutenant. You calculated the odds of a recovery based on self-assessment , and often, those odds are more accurate than those given by doctors, who rely on averages rather than the condition of the individual to make prognoses," said Spock.

He left out the remainder of his thoughts, the part where he would tell her that he understood the absolute need to be able to perform optimally at all times. It was not enough to be perfect. One had to be, superhuman—supervulcan, superhumanoid. It was a matter of survival. His mother used to say, _You have nothing to prove. _Of course, this was not true. He had everything to prove—not simply his excellence, but his right to be alive at all, his right to exist.

"Do you mind if I take this off?" she asked, referring to her boot.

"It will reduce the swelling if you keep it on," he said.

"I know. I just want to relieve the pressure. If it swells, it swells."

"Very well," said Spock. "Do whatever will make you feel most comfortable."

He realized a second too late that it was unwise to say this. After the boot was off, the sock cameoff, and he could see her bare foot—and it occurred to him, he had never seen it before. It was delicate and narrow and small, and despite the fact that her uniform revealed much more skin, there was something achingly personal about seeing her now in such undress.

Spock removed his coat, and had Uhura shift so he could place it under her body, the hood of it bundling her feet.

"Thanks," she said, then laid back into the fabric, her legs bent at the knee, her arms crossed behind her head.

"It is no trouble," said Spock. Through her jacket, he could see the rise and fall of her chest, the flutter of her eyelids as she gazed at the stars, too many for even him to conceptualize mathematically.

"I'll feel guilty if you don't join me," Uhura said.

"Guilty?"

"Yeah. For stealing your coat."

"A curious colloqiualism, as I clearly volunteered the garment to you." But he lay down next anyway. The sand, ice cold, prickled at the nape of his neck, but the coat provided sufficent insulation from the ground for the rest of his body.

He could smell her hair. Something citrusy and sweet. He wanted to grab the long strands, tangle his fingers into them and pull her head to the side so he could place his mouth on her neck.

"Uhura?"

"Yeah?"

"I realize that preamble to speech is unnecessary, but I feel moved to give make explicit certain caveats anyway. I suppose that the human custom of preparing the other person for the content of a conversation has 'rubbed off on me.'"

"Am I to understand that you just gave me a preamble to your preamble?"

Spock blinked. "Indeed."'

Uhura propped herself up onto an elbow, so that she was looking down at him. "Go ahead. Preamble away."

"I wish to tell you something that you may find rather unsavoury. I want you to understand, however, that you are by no means required to behave in any particular manner in response to my declaration, and that if it would make you most comfortable not to speak to me again, I would remind you that that is your prerogative."

Her face grew anticpatory—or perhaps concerned? The lack of proper light muted her facial expressions, and he could not read them very precisely.

"Go ahead. Say what you need to say. I can take it," she said.

It would be illogical to draw this out any longer, so he begins. "I am not the person everyone thinks that I am."

"And who is the person everyone thinks you are?"

He paused, wishing o gather his thoughts in order to increased fluency and eloquence." They think that I am good. Noble. I am not good, Nyota," he said, unsure of what made him use her given name. "When I offered to accompany you on this stroll, I must admit that I had thoughts I do not consider very becoming."

Uhura's bottom lip trembled several seconds before she sucked it into her mouth, letting it fold back out slightly. "What kind of thoughts, Spock?" she asked, the hint of a stutter in her rasped voice.

It was strange to hear her sound so thoroughly abashed, this woman who was always so confident, powerful, self-assured.

"Thoughts about what I would like to do you," he said.

Uhura made a sound in the back of her throat, and because he was not sure whether it was meant to be a vocalization of protest, he stopped. "I apologize," he said, beginning to get up.

But she placed her hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down.

Was she aware of the depths of illogic she brought him to? How many mornings he'd woken up sticky after dreams of her? How thoughts of her—what she was doing, who she was with, what she was thinking—consumed him. How close he'd come to resigning his commision as a result of her proximity and the way it affected him

Spock wondered if she thought him as cold as everyone else. Celibate, virginal. He was no such thing. He knew all the ways to make her beg for his tongue and his teeth and his lok.

"Wha—what would you like to do to me, Sir?" asked Uhura.

Her voice quivered on that last word, _Sir_, and it was utterly depraved that it was _that_which sent the rush of blood to his groin.

"To fuck you," he said, honestly.

He wanted to join with her, yes, but more than that was a desire to make her scream and convulse and sweat and dig her nails into his back and buttocks. He wanted her to feel good. He wanted to have her in a way that was rough and fraught and bruising, leaving the both of them sated and worn and marked and covered in each other.

He looked into her eyes, prepared to discern shock, fright.

It was bracing how absolutely beautiful she was, but it was what lay beyond it, inside the mind, that left him wondering and grasping and covetous.

She pressed herself closer to him, her head in the crook of his arm as she reclined again.

Her hand wandered beneath layers of his clothing to settle on his bare stomach. "Is this okay?" she asked.

It takes a supreme amount of effort to say, "Yes," when all he wanted to do was flip her completely onto her back and slide his lok into her.

Instead, he turned, so that he could mirror her touch, unzip her jacket and move his hand under her shirt to reach her warm skin. At the sound of her hesitant moan, he unbuttoned her trousers, stifled a growl when she jerked her hips.

Which lead him to this, now, the present, what he has craved for so long his body does not quite know what to do with it.

He rubs her through the cotton of her underwear, feeling them soak and become sticky, ripping them to the side so he can insert a finger into her, and then another. Spock thinks he might like to switch them around, until she is more on top, so that he can watch her fuck his fingers. But he cannot give up this position. It is gratifying to feel his biceps tighten as he explores her, in and out, to watch her face beneath the moon and stars.

She is perfect, unblemished in any way, and he whispers as much into her ear in Vulkhansu.

She says his name, grabs his neck and pulls him down further, biting the tip of his ear.

"Nyota, Nyota, Nyota," he says, and his voice does not sound like his own. It is mad and barely restrained and too raspy.

His penis strains against his trousers, but he cannot bare to remove his hands from her to take care of it. It is not dignified, but he grinds his erection against her thigh in hopes of finding some relief.

"Please," she says.

"'Please, what, Nyota?" asks Spock, the heel of his hand pressing her clit as he fingers her. Her thighs spread and widen, and he tugs her jeans down until they're at her ankles, white panties soon to follow. It would not be proper, to take her right here, to lift her legs up over his shoulders and hammer into her, but that does not stop him from very much wanting to. She is wet and glistening. He leans down, finds her left nipple with his lips and sucks it through the fabric of her shirt, bites.

She feels so good.

"Come on my fingers, Nyota," he commands, when he can feel how close she is, her muscles tensing, her breaths coming in short pants.

And she does. He, for the first time, kisses her, wanting to taste her screams. She rocks her hips into his hand as each wave takes her, and it's that movement that does him in as well, spurts of semen stickying up his undergarments as she fucks his hand.

It is several moments later when she speaks, still clutching him. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to lose it like that." Spock is sure that if it was day time, he would see a flush of color darken her cheeks.

"You are stunning when lost in the throes of pleasure. Do not concern yourself. "

She curls into his side, her hands under his sweater and against his skin, presumably to keep warm.

"I felt you," she says. "I felt your—response to me." Spock remembers the disturbing way he'd rubbed his length against her thigh. "I've imagined that before, what it would be like to actually get to feel you like that against me."

"I, too, have imagined this, Nyota," he says.

This, and more, but it would not be logical to reveal all the ways she undoes him.

They re-dress, taking it slow back to the bonfire party, in consideration for her ankle.

They both smell like come, so when they reach the perimeter of the festivities, they head instead straight to the parking area, where the ZipHover Spock rented sits. He watches her adjust herself into her seat, pulling the safety belt over her shoulders. She is tired, he can tell, based on the way her head lulls to the side, facing him, the hint of a smile on her lips. "Is it okay if I stay at your place tonight?" she asks, her gaze steady on his.

"Yes," says Spock, truly meaning it.

There is no place he'd rather have her than by his side, tucked into his embrace.


End file.
